


Mabazgân (The Slain Ones)

by Bofur1



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Best Friends, Canonical Character Death, Forgive Me, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, What Was I Thinking?, friendship feels, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Bofur1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>A daily thought, <br/>A silent tear, <br/>A constant wish that you were here. <br/>Words are few <br/>But thoughts are deep. <br/>Memories of our friendship I will always keep.<em></em></em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mabazgân (The Slain Ones)

Gimli convinced his mother to pray with him—pray for Adad and Uncle Óin and Fíli and Kíli and Ori. Gimli and Gwulla pled for Mahal to keep the Company’s safety and strength.

Every night as he lay in bed and tried to sleep, Gimli remembered word for word the last time he’d seen his three best friends.

“So. I’m the one who’s not going,” he muttered sulkily.

Ori’s expression was one of deep sympathy and regret as he hugged his worn sketchbook to his chest. Fidgeting his weight back and forth, he couldn’t quite meet Gimli in the eye.

Kíli was the opposite. Putting a hand on Gimli’s shoulder, he smiled encouragingly. “Don’t be sad, Gimli!”

“We’ll tell you everything when we get back,” Fíli promised.

Gimli nodded wordlessly and shuffled forward, hugging them so hard that all three of them squeaked. As his closest friends drifted away toward their ponies, Gimli felt a surge of heartache. These three had always included him, had always stuck up for him, had always dried his tears. Fíli, Kíli, and Ori had never turned their backs on him—until now.

“I’ll be patient!” he shouted after them. “I won’t even complain while you’re gone!”

No matter how bad they felt about leaving, his friends laughed at that.

And just before he dozed off Gimli would send one last prayer that his friends would continue to laugh all the way to Erabor.

* * *

 

Now Gimli is hidden in the deepest corner—at least, the deepest he could find in these unfamiliar places of Erabor. Mentally he screams, hoping that Fíli and Kíli will hear him in the Halls of Waiting.

 _You promised to tell me everything when you came back,_ he shouts at Fíli. _And then you_ never _came back. Promise-breaker!_

 _You told me not to be sad,_ he barks at Kíli. _You lied to me with that encouraging smile and the pat on the shoulder. Liar!_

They were liars and promise-breakers. But they were his dearest friends.

Someone’s shadow crawls up the wall and a soft, familiar voice speaks. “Gimli?”

He looks up and instantly tears begin streaming down his cheeks. When he heard the news, he had assumed Ori was lost too. Gimli stumbles forward and presses his wet face into Ori’s sweater. Thick bandages that smell stale with blood can be felt underneath the fabric, but Gimli doesn’t care. Ori is here—warm with life and breath.

“Ori, Ori, Ori...” Gimli whispers the name again and again, rubbing his face against the cardigan, trying to convince himself that its wearer truly is here with him now.

“I heard you came and I—I had to find you,” Ori says in a choked voice. “I thought you might end up here...this was the room they wanted. They wanted to be as far away from the gold as possible—” Their legs give out at nearly the same time and they fall in a shuddering, sobbing heap.

For what seems an eternity and a second they remain on the floor, clinging to each other with the desperation of communal grief.

Gimli and Ori become close, closer than they ever were in Ered Luin. Virtually inseparable, Dori, Nori, Óin and Glóin note over tea and their own sorrow.

Gimli and Ori return to the lost princes’ room many times. They lament together and afterward they dry each other’s tears and support each other as they stumble blindly through the days.

The words they speak to each other there—of jokes that no longer hold laughter, of words that no longer have meaning, of promises that no longer need keeping—are heard only by the unspeaking walls, and by two young princes who stand together in the Waiting Halls, looking down upon their heartbroken friends with tears in their eyes.


End file.
